Periods – Let’s End the Stigma.

Migraines, constipation, diarrhea, painful sexual intercourse – all possible issues menstruators, or people who menstruate, may experience. For those unfamiliar with the word, menstruators is a gender-inclusive term to address the fact that non-binary, gender nonconforming, and trans people menstruate as well. A PubMed Central search for “trans gender AND menstruation” retrieves 866 results, compared to a search for “women AND menstruation”, which pulls 21,269 results, demonstrating the relatively limited amount of available research on this topic/population.

The August 2019 issue of NIH News in Health addresses some period problems and current research and treatments available to those who menstruate. A main takeaway from the piece is for people to end the stigma around periods and start talking about them! The Office of Women’s Health provides an online ovulation calculator and a fact sheet to use when discussing menstrual cycles with healthcare providers. GirlsHealth.gov provides a page to begin the discussion early, and organizations such as Period Movement work with chapters across the U.S. to educate and advocate. These are just a few ways for people to become involved in the movement to end period shame, poverty, and continue the conversation!

ABOUT Nora Franco
Nora works as the Consumer Health Librarian for NNLM PSR at UCLA and is passionate about empowering people to participate in their healthcare by locating reliable health information. She is an advocate for recruiting traditionally underrepresented groups to health sciences librarianship.

This project has been funded in whole or in part with Federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine, under cooperative agreement number UG4LM012344 with the University of Utah, Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library.​